Pursued by the Rake

by Lancaster, Mary

  It was, she knew, an important point, but Joe didn’t bat an eyelid. “Of course not,” he agreed. “Which is why Selim is quite correct. We have to get rid of Barden.”

  His eyes, dancing with mischief and something much more serious, were really quite spellbinding. But she could not simply fall into the trap of doing what he wanted. What he said he wanted. Did he really feel so responsible for her?

  “That would cause more talk, not less. He would tell everyone I had fooled even you, so that you would not hear a word against me, and you threw him out!”

  “Nonsense,” Joe said. “It will not be a story he wishes to repeat, so he will stick with the tale that he is called to a sick relative.”

  “Why will he not wish to repeat it?” Hazel asked unwarily.

  Joe smiled.

  *

  When Lord Barden blew out his candle and closed his eyes, he was very pleased with the way the evening had gone. His luck had changed, and Hazel would soon be on her knees, begging him to take her away. By then, it wouldn’t even matter if she was stupid enough not to stay with him. The world would soon know she had left with him. And that was good enough for vengeance. Anything more was a bonus he had no time to linger for. He had bigger fish to fry than a silly girl so full of false pride that she didn’t know her place.

  In this self-congratulatory spirit, he fell asleep.

  He came to with someone pulling his arms about. Moreover, the bedclothes had gone, and the air chilled through his nightgown.

  “Go away, Rogers,” he growled. “It’s too early! Are you drunk again?”

  “Who can tell?” a familiar foreign voice murmured. “The man is, I imagine, asleep in his own bed.”

  Barden’s eyes flew open, not into darkness but into the light of a lamp on his bedside table. The face of the Turk loomed over him, as the man finished hauling him into a sitting position and jerked his arms behind his back.

  “What the devil are you doing?” Barden demanded, trying to pull free. “In fact, what’s your part in any of this? You seem damned friendly with our host, considering you were quite happy to buy his whore from me only a few hours ago, to say nothing of trying to stab—”

  A back-handed slap took him in the mouth, rattling his teeth. Too late, he realized the presence of another man who shoved a handkerchief ungently into his already stinging mouth.

  “Selim was saving a lady’s life, not trying to ruin it.”

  The new voice was familiar to Barden. He knew it was his host’s, and yet there was some other familiarity he hadn’t noticed before. Even now, he was far too outraged to think about it, for the Turk was actually tying Barden’s hands behind his back, while Sayle seemed to be doing the same to his feet.

  In sudden, considerable fear, Barden jerked, bucking in their hold. Sayle sat on his legs and finished binding them at the ankle.

  “Time for you to go, old fellow,” Sayle said with a false bonhomie that for some reasoning was utterly threatening.

  Barden tried to speak but managed only a gurgle.

  “My mother and sisters don’t really care for the tone of your conversation,” Sayle said by way of explanation. “And frankly, neither do I.”

  “Will he spit out the gag and set up a racket?” Selim wondered.

  Dementedly, Barden shook his head, although it was what he was trying desperately to do.

  “Here,” Sayle said, pulling a neckcloth from the dresser drawer. “Tie that around his mouth, and let’s be off. Where’s the damned valet?”

  “Here, sir,” said yet another voice. Rogers was suddenly pushed into the room by another manservant—presumably Sayle’s.

  Rogers began to protest about this violence to his dignity, but his voice died away as he caught sight of Barden, and his eyes widened in shock.

  “Your master is leaving us,” Sayle said. “Pack up his things. It would be a shame if he had to come back for them. My man will help for speed, and then you can bring everything down to the stables, where the coach is waiting.”

  Barden’s bewilderment must have been clear in his eyes, for Sayle curled his lip into an unpleasant sneer. “Yes, I do regard it as that urgent. You see, old fellow, you really can’t go around abusing people’s hospitality, tricking perfectly innocent young ladies, or using others to try and ruin their lives. It’s…paltry, and I’m afraid I just can’t stomach any more. Take his feet, Selim, and let’s get him out of here.”

  It was then that Barden realized the full horror of his situation. He was in his nightgown, bound and carted between them like a very large Christmas goose. If any of the other guests saw him like this, they would only laugh, and word would spread around London before he could get out of Sussex. Worse, there was no point in even trying to escape, though it might just have been possible while they carried him, for someone would need a hand free to carry the light. But he had nowhere to go, no one to scream to. This was Sayle’s house, full of his family, servants, and friends.

  This could not be worse, he though in furious, abject humiliation.

  But it could. When Selim opened the bedchamber door, Barden saw a lady waiting for them with a lit candle.

  Hazel Curwen.

  She cast an anxious glance at him, then her lips twitched. “Oh, dear.”

  “Light our way, fair handmaiden,” Sayle murmured, and with a breath of laughter, she all but skipped down the passage, the bobbing candle’s glow sending weird and wonderful shadows up the walls.

  The stairs were the worst, for he was terrified they would drop him, deliberately or otherwise, but they seemed to cause a great deal of hilarity among his captors, who shook and snorted and gasped with laughter.

  They seemed to have it all planned. In the great hallway, Hazel darted forward to draw back the bolts on the front door, and to light a waiting lantern from her candle, which she then blew out. Picking up the lantern, she eased open the heavy door.

  Selim and Sayle swung him as though they meant simply to hurl him out the front door. Barden closed his eyes in horror. How would he crawl from here to the stables and privacy? How long would it take Rogers to come to his aid?

  But again, the men merely resorted to schoolboy grins and sniggers and carried him safely through the door and along the terrace to the stable path.

  It was his own carriage and horses that awaited him, complete with his own coachman who looked none too pleased to have been summoned from his bed at this hour. He didn’t bat an eyelid at his master’s predicament, Barden noted bitterly, but then that was his own fault for training the man to see and hear nothing.

  Hazel opened the carriage door, and the men heaved him onto the seats like a sack of coal.

  “Goodbye, my lord,” Hazel said coldly and walked away with Selim.

  Sayle paused for a moment, silhouetted in the doorway. “If you come anywhere near her again, I will simply kill you.”

  The door slammed. Shivering with cold and fear, Barden struggled to dredge up why the voice was so familiar, more familiar than ever in the carriage for some reason. In a few moments, he heard the sounds of the trunk being strapped onto the back of the carriage. Then the door opened again, and Rogers got in with the smaller bags, which he dumped on the opposite seat before reaching for Barden’s gag.

  The horses jerked into motion, and the carriage rumbled to the drive. Rogers pulled down the neckcloth and gingerly dragged the balled-up kerchief from Barden’s mouth. Barden gagged and spat and demanded water. Hastily, Rogers found his flask, which contained the Sayles’ brandy rather than water, but for once, Barden did not complain.

  Rogers held the flask to his lips, and Barden swallowed. “Get these damned ropes off my hands and feet!” he ordered. “And I hope you’ve got clothes in those bags.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Rogers worked at the knots, Barden reflected bitterly that it was less than a day since he had actually held Hazel Curwen captive on this very seat. If it hadn’t been for the damned highwayman…

  His mouth fel
l open. “It was him!”

  “What, sir?” the valet asked without much interest.

  “The highwayman! It was thrice-damned Sayle himself! Quick, Rogers, find out where the magistrate lives! His name is Colonel Farraday, and we’re going straight there!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  After the hilarity of lugging Lord Barden downstairs and throwing him into the carriage, Hazel stood at the front door with Joe and Selim to watch his carriage departing.

  “He won’t forget this,” she warned.

  “I hope he doesn’t,” Joe said. He turned back into the house and closed and bolted the door behind them all. “As far as we are concerned, his wings are clipped. I just hope he remembers that before he is tempted to try anything similar.”

  Hazel thought of the other young women deliberately summoned to Connaught Place, and shivered. Then, the image of Lord Barden, bound and gagged and in his nightgown, overlaid all others, and she giggled. Her monster had been reduced to a figure of fun.

  “Your world is a revelation to me,” Selim murmured as they walked toward the grand staircase. “Though I am assuming neither his behavior nor yours is normal.”

  “It’s not so different from the Ottoman world,” Joe argued. He glanced at his friend. “Do you miss home?”

  Selim shrugged. “Of course. But like you, I have restless feet and an adventurous spirit. I am enjoying seeing the rest of the world.”

  “I shall be going to Vienna next month,” Joe said. “Perhaps we can instigate some talks with the Sultan’s representatives, through which your regret and wish for forgiveness could be tactfully conveyed.”

  “Perhaps,” Selim replied with a quick smile. “It will be a long road home, but one has to begin somewhere. After your ball, I shall go to London and see if I can find some means of communicating with my cousin, the sultan. But now, after the satisfaction of dealing with your unpleasant guest, I shall retire and sleep until midday. Good night!”

  With his candle, Selim set off toward the guests’ wing, while Joe accompanied Hazel along the opposite passage toward her chamber.

  Since they had no desire to wake anyone else, they did not speak, which somehow increased her physical awareness of him, his every easy yet controlled movement beside her, every glance at her, each shadow on his handsome face. She could hear the quickened beating of her heart, reveled in the tingling heat spreading through her. If he touched her…

  She longed for him to touch her.

  She dreaded and yearned for the moment they reached her door. Afraid he would leave her with no more a bow. Craving the smallest token of his affection, even a light kiss on her fingers that she could treasure, and yet should not.

  Eternal parting loomed between them. But not yet, not yet.

  In the window embrasure next to her chamber, where once she had encountered Roberta Standish, Joe paused and lit one of the waiting candles there from his own. Then, with odd deliberation, he set his candle down beside it and turned to her.

  Her mouth went dry when he took her hand. She could not breathe. He had long, elegant fingers, sensitive, like a musician’s or an artist’s. They curled around hers and held while she slowly, almost fearfully, lifted her gaze to his.

  The candlelight lent his face a warm glow and yet emphasized the shadows, reminding her that however well she thought she knew him now, a huge part of his life was still a mystery. And must remain so. But his eyes were more than warm. They seemed to glitter with heat, and his lips—those expressive, sensual lips—curved in a smile that was almost predatory. Her stomach dived.

  But he did not seize her in his arms as she both desired and feared. He just stood very still and very close, his eyes locked to hers. Only his fingers moved in a sweet, gentle caress of her hand. His thumb stroked her palm in a beguiling circle. His fingertips played across her knuckles and up to her wrist, smoothing the sensitive skin over her veins, spreading delicious heat through her blood to her whole body. Lust curled in the pit of her stomach, heavy and thrilling.

  And yet still, he had touched no more than her hand, her wrist.

  Dear God, to be closer to him now, to feel his kisses on her mouth, the hardness of his body, naked and caressing… She could not control the tiny gasp.

  They stood a yard away from her bedchamber door.

  “Why,” he whispered, “do I always find it so hard to say goodnight to you?”

  Don’t. Don’t say good night… The words caught in her throat, remaining unsaid as was only proper.

  He raised her wildly sensitive hand and softly kissed it, the touch of his lips like a shock of electricity, a lightning strike.

  For me, not for him, she reminded herself desperately.

  “Good night,” she blurted, and fled before the words in her heart broke free, and she broke every rule for love.

  *

  Although she knew that the parting from Joe could not be far away, she woke late that morning with a song in her heart, perhaps because of the support of his family, and because of last night’s ridiculous ejection of Lord Barden. Or the tenderness of his caress before she had fled her own feelings. She treasured every slightest sign of his affection, even while acknowledging its impossibility.

  She rose, washed and dressed, visited the young Spriggs who were already breakfasting in the nursery, and then went downstairs to enjoy her own breakfast.

  Joe was not at the table. But Emma was and treated her to a conspiratorial grin, from which Hazel deduced that she had already learned the success of Barden’s ejection.

  “You have a letter,” Emma said, passing a sealed epistle across the table as Hazel sat down with her modestly loaded plate.

  “Oh.” In some surprise, Hazel drew it nearer and immediately recognized the writing. “It’s from Amelia!” she said in surprise.

  Breaking the seal, she scanned it quickly. The Armitages were home in the vicarage and had read the note she’d left for them with some astonishment. In typical Amelia fashion, she invited Hazel to travel home with the children whenever should be convenient and make her home with them until Captain Curwen’s return.

  It was an undeniable relief to have somewhere to go, even if it would make a rather cramped house for the Armitages. But it would only be for a few weeks until she had found a position of some kind. For now, she drank in Amelia’s descriptions of Paris and the French countryside and between the lines read what she most wanted to learn—that Amelia was happy with her clergyman.

  “We’re riding over to the oaks today,” Emma said cheerfully when Hazel finally laid the letter aside. “And taking luncheon for an al fresco. You are coming, aren’t you?”

  Since a matron and her daughter had hastily departed the breakfast room on Hazel’s arrival, she doubted her presence would improve the party, but she had agreed last night to the Sayles’ plan. After all, they understood society better than she ever could. So, she swallowed back her refusal and said only. “I would love to, if there are enough horses.”

  “Those who prefer can walk.” Emma said. “It isn’t far.”

  It was quite a large party, made up mostly of young people, but since Lady Standish was chaperoning the expedition, Agatha’s parents allowed her to join it. Mr. and Mrs. Renleigh would not, Hazel suspected, have been quite so cooperative had they realized Agatha chose to walk to the oaks in company with Bart and his siblings.

  For her part, Hazel enjoyed the exercise of riding, the scenery, the pleasure of the sunshine, and the soft breeze against her face—and the secret joy of occasionally riding beside Joe and exchanging bantering conversation with him. These things made up for the cold civility of others and the frequency with which she was left alone. For neither Joe nor Selim would cause further scandal by clinging solely to her. And both Emma and Roberta had apparently decided natural friendliness rather than more blatant support would work best.

  Leaving the accompanying servants to set out the luncheon, they rode a little beyond the oaks to see more of the estate.

&nb
sp; It was pretty, Hazel acknowledged as they stopped to admire the view. And prosperous as far as she could tell. The farmers and laborers occasionally encountered were well-dressed and cheerful, greeting Joe and his sisters with respect and no signs of fear or resentment. It was good land, with good people, and she knew a pang of regret that she would never know them better than this.

  A horse sidled alongside hers. Joe.

  “It’s funny,” he said after a little. “When I was a boy, I saw no beauty in this. I couldn’t wait to shake the soil of home from my boots and stride out into the world. Now, I think of it when I’m away. I look forward to coming home.”

  “And to leaving again,” she guessed.

  He smiled faintly. “I am a lucky man. I can have both. And I would hate to lose either. But here…my roots are here, wherever else I go.”

  “Like climbing ivy.”

  He laughed. “Perhaps. Do you feel anything similar for your home?”

  “I don’t know that I do,” she admitted. “Home was always where I could find my father.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She died in childbirth when I was very young. When my father was at sea, which he was a great deal of the time. I was dragged up by servants with occasional furious interventions by my grandmother—my mother’s mother, who is currently in Scotland. Amelia Sprigg was my salvation. A friend, a teacher who was never angry. It’s largely because of her I was fit to be considered for service to the princess.”

  “I would like to meet her one day.”

  She cast him a humorous glance. “I imagine you will before you are rid of her siblings.”

  “Was it she who inspired your desire to travel?”

  “Partly. She had never been out of England herself, of course, but she was an avid reader, and I devoured her travel books with glee. But it was my father’s stories that truly brought other countries alive for me. I probably knew in my heart the princess would not take me with her when she left England. But I hoped.”